Village, Sweet Village

By SUZANNE SLESIN

Published: July 23, 1992

FORGET about the weathered shingle or the white geometric. On eastern Long Island, one of the country's most fertile landscapes for new architectural ideas, where new trendsetting beach houses appear every summer with the regularity of the tides, there's a whole new look.

This season, the house is no longer just a house. It's an entire village.

For some time, people have been getting by with just a turret or a gazebo. But to be on the forefront these days you need a lighthouse or windmill, a barn or a campanile. A bridge or a widow's walk is a good beginning.

Architects are only too happy to comply. In the Hamptons, where the land is flat and second homes tend to reach mammoth proportions, three new houses, ranging from 7,000 to nearly 18,000 square feet, are almost completed. They cost millions of dollars and are a combination of client whim and architectural bravado.

"I asked for an Italian farm, and this is what I got," said Richard Ekstract, the publisher of Events U.S.A., a new magazine, who is known locally as someone who changes houses as often as others change bathing suits.

Diana Agrest and Mario Gandelsonas of Agrest & Gandelsonas, a New York architectural firm, designed Mr. Ekstract's latest extravaganza in Sagaponack. The house, known in the area as the "Tuscan village," is the culmination of what Mr. Ekstract described as "my Italian period."

Because Mr. Ekstract does not do things halfway, he took Italian lessons, bought books on Italian villas and a few years ago commissioned Alexander Gorlin, a New York architect, to design Villa Viare, a house in East Hampton that was "sort of formal and kind of Palladian," Mr. Ekstract said.

"It was lovely," he said, "but I realized that what I really wanted was an Italian country house. An agglomeration of buildings that looked like they came together over a long period of time was what I was after."

Then Mr. Ekstract met Ms. Agrest and Mr. Gandelsonas. "He was fishing for architects," Mr. Gandelsonas said. "He came to our office and loved a house we had designed that never got built. It had a lot of towers."

Months later, Mr. Ekstract commissioned the pair to design his new house on an eight-acre site overlooking Sagg Pond. Ms. Agrest said they were surprised to be asked. "We're known for being very theoretical," she said. "Richard took a chance." Mr. Gandelsonas said that people who come to see the house are puzzled. "For most people, it's not a house, it's an enigma, " he added. "I don't think we designed it that way, but we're happy about it. Asking 'what does this mean?' is what architecture is about."

The project has become the architects' masterpiece. (In fact, although the two have worked on many large-scale renovations, this is the first house they have designed that has been built.)

Mr. Ekstract named his new house Villa Amore. The basic design of the 8,000-square-foot house is that of a large shed punctuated with a series of towers. The tower that houses the guest rooms is a little house on legs; the one for the housekeeper is a square shingled clocktower topped with a windowed outdoor space that has no roof.

"That's the most beautiful room," Ms. Agrest said, "but in the end, we couldn't put in the stair to reach the top, so there's no way to get up there. It's now sort of metaphysical."

There's also a greenhouse-like cylindrical tower made of laminated horizontal wood beams that has been cut in half and made into a bathroom and study; a gazebo on a tripod is reached from the master bedroom by a long walkway.

"A weird object," Ms. Agrest said. I don't know why we built it like that."

A few weeks ago, Mr. Ekstract and his wife, Eileen, who owns the Mephisto shoe store in East Hampton, moved in.

"It's quite something," Mr. Ekstract said. "The architects are very cerebral as well as spare and minimal. I'm a romantic." Mr. Ekstract is also an art collector. Some of the slanted and angled walls cannot accommodate his large paintings. And he's disappointed in the size of the master bedroom, which is 15 by 18 feet. "The architects believe people should sleep in small rooms," Mr. Ekstract said. "I don't."

The large scale and exposed structure of the ground-floor spaces seem to make up for that. The living room is barrel-vaulted, the sun-room's floor-to ceiling glass windows offer an uninterrupted view of the rural landscape. A wide ceremonial stair leads to the three-bedroom guest wing. A spiral stair swirls up to the master bedroom suite. There are 17 sets of glass double doors.

"From one room you nearly always see parts of the rest of the house," Mr. Gandelsonas said. "Movement is very important."

Ms. Agrest said the views all around were so spectacular, that "you really don't need furniture."

The Ekstracts and Paul Siskin, their interior designer, had a different idea. "I've never worked in a house where furniture is so important," said Mr. Siskin of Siskin-Valls, a New York firm. "Without furniture you don't really want to be here."

"It was absolutely challenging," said Mr. Siskin, who furnished the rooms with a fanciful mix of modern pieces that include sofas and club chairs by Jean-Michel Frank and nesting and side tables from the 50's by Robsjohn-Gibbings. There's also a well-patinated Indian rope bed.